Photo depiction of Barbara Smuts & her Dogs
In the article of Encounters with Animal Minds, Barbara Smuts studies baboons over a long course of time as if she was living with them in order to study their behaviors and how they interact with their own species. Her goal is to understand if animals in general were able to think as actively and as much as humans do. She wanted to truly experience how it was like to live life with the baboons and to be able to track their behaviors easier by living with them. She went many days without human contact and to only spend the times with these baboons. After this long period of time, she forms a very strong bonds with all the baboons in the troop. Each baboon has a special relationship with Barbara and she was able to distinguish them through sound and other sense than just only seeing them. What Barbara found was that, the baboons are able to speak and think just as well as humans.
As Barbara was learning about the baboons, she had to not actually stay neutral to study but to interact with the baboons in order to not cause any disruptions to the baboon's eyes. She met them through perceiving what their personal space is and learning their "language". She observed how baboons respected personal space during courting or even when how Goblin tried to "tame" her in a way like he did with other baboons to have dominance as a male.
The baboons do express their emotions through grunts and hand gestures to other baboons. They are able to seek and act as human individual through their pack. They perform a gift ritual before they eat and know where and when to find shelter from the rain. They are very smart beings from Barbara's research determined. And as my opinion, they should not be treated any less than humans.
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